Yesterday St. James Anglican Church in Parkhill was celebrating
its 149th anniversary. It was
a low-key but lovely service which Lorna and I attended. Rev. Karen Nelles, the rector of the parish
was presiding and preaching. It was
rater nice to be able to worship with Lorna and have a break from any liturgical
duties. The sermon was based on the Gospel
reading John 15:1-8, with the theme, I am the vine you are the branches.
In her sermon, Karen referred to drinking the Kool-Aid. This is a reference to the cult led by Jim Jones
who forced his followers to drink Kool-Aid laced with poison. It has come to refer to someone who goes along
with a dangerous idea because of peer pressure.
It stuck me that Jim Jones had mistakenly tried to be the vine
instead of a branch. In effect, he
wanted to be in control rather than acknowledging that God is the one who should
be in control and is ultimately in control. I recall years ago watching a movie based in Jim
Jones’ life. As I recall, he started out
in California with a ministry which had very high motives. It was focussed on racial integration. However, he lost his way and led his
followers astray with deadly consequences.
In effect, he began to believe he was the vine rather than one of the branches.
It is very easy to become confused about being a vine or a branch. Putting it another way we believe that our
branch is really the same as the vine and therefore what we desire for
ourselves and others is actually what God desires.
Sin is not just a question of being alone and not being in
relationship with other people and the world.
It is a question of what kind of relationship. A master and a slave are in a relationship but
it is a relationship in which one person―the master―is in control and the other―the slave―is
controlled i.e. not free. That is a state
of being in sin. The relationship
between others and me must be mutual. In
which one does not control or dominate the other. Richard Rohr addressed this in today’s Daily
Meditation quoting C.S. Lewis:
Sin is a refusal of mutuality and a closing down into
separateness. In his classic book, The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis has a ghostly
soul in hell shouting out, “I don’t want help. I want to be left alone.” [1]
Whenever we refuse mutuality toward anything, whenever we won’t allow our deep
inner-connectedness to guide us, whenever we’re not attuned to both receiving
and giving, you could say that the Holy Spirit is existentially (but not
essentially) absent from our lives.
The desire to control is a great temptation for us as human
beings. It is natural but it is not the
intention God has for us. We are called
to live lives in which we serve and not lives in which we believe we should be
served. We are the branches and Jesus is
the vine.
Blessings on your journey.
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